A Little Bit of Ellie's Room

I'm not finished with Ellie's room, but I have finally taken the time to finish a few little projects that have been on my to-do list for quite a while.

Ellie's room has been painted for weeks now, but I tend to take my time when picking out things that I'm going to have to live with. After looking in stores and online, I kept leaning towards a chocolate brown comforter and either chocolate curtains or buying printed fabric with brown and other colors.I read lots of design blogs, and they helped me decide that I wanted to use a shade of orange in her room. I feel like we have plenty of dark brown in our house (living room, kitchen, master bedroom and the girl's bathroom) so I was trying hard to stay away from it. I couldn't find anything with orange in it that I liked. I love the way white looks with the color (Valspar, Blue Whisper) of her walls, so I finally decided to go with a white down comforter and white curtains. I think it looks sweet with her white chest of drawers, toy box and book shelf. And it looks really girl-y! Of course, her room color looks nothing like the way that it photographs.


I always try to let Maggie and Ellie have things that reflect their likes and personalities in their rooms. Maggie's pink and zebra room is sort of sassy just like her. Ellie likes the color blue, so we knew that we wanted a shade of blue for her walls. (I'd share the inspiration for her wall color, but the blog is currently out of order.) She has recently fallen in love with Dorothy, the Tin Man and all things Wizard of Oz. We had an extra print upstairs that we had planned to give to Maggie well over a year ago for her birthday, but sometimes her Mommy buys her presents and then forgets about them. ;-) She was so excited when she saw it on her wall. She also loves her ABC's, which she calls "P's".

I have always thought that scrapbooking seemed like a waste of paper, but I have a great love of scrapbooking paper. I also love the sample sizes of paints that you can have mixed. I had a sample of Olympic's Two To Tango mixed so that I could paint the canvas and the picture frames. Hopefully, I'll get the canvas on the wall tomorrow.

Busy, Busy

I have been a busy bee this week! Of course, Maggie and Ellie keep me busy, but I've been working on accessories for Ellie's room after they go to bed. Without Big Daddy here to distract me I can accomplish quite a bit!

Maggie is registered for the sign language class that she wanted to take and Ellie will be in a preschoolers class. I'll be helping out or going to bible study.

We have a long meeting tomorrow night at church for our new Awana year and a fun field trip on Friday. Thursday is our free day for this week and I'd love to stay in bed until noon. I've never managed to do that, but I really think I could at this point in my life...if only the children would let me!

Hopefully, I'll have a few pictures of Ellie's big girl room to share on Friday.

Celebrate Good Times!!

On Sunday evening we celebrated my nephew! His birthday is today and he is 21. I'm still not sure how that happened.

My sister decided that he is a little too old for a "real" birthday party, so we had an informal family gathering and ate finger foods last night. I'm always trying to come up with something that's a little different for functions like these. ..other than my Yogurt Spinach Dip.

When we enrolled in our homeschool group, we had snacks and drinks before the "meeting". I put the tiniest spoonful of an amazing dip on my plate. After I'd had one bite I wanted the recipe. I thought about asking around, but the group is large and the only other person that I knew was my cousin. So, I chit-chatted with the parents (of nine homeschooled children) at my table and thought I'd look online for a similar recipe. The very next day, the homeschool group's founder asked for website help on facebook. I saw where one of the members said that she had a website and could help. I clicked over to her site and found out that it was a food blog. I did a search for the dip and found it. And now we're facebook friends.

So here's the recipe that I'm going to call Homeschool Jalapeno Popper Dip! I'm already thinking this may be a neat dip for Big daddy to take to office parties and such.

Homeschool Jalapeno Popper Dip
2- 8 oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1 c mayo
8 oz chopped green chiles
2 oz canned/jarred jalapenos, chopped
1/2 c shredded parmesan cheese
Mix first four ingredients in bowl. Transfer to casserole dish and top with shredded parmesan cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. Serve hot with tortilla chips.

This isn't the healthiest dip, but if you're serving it at a party with lots of people you'll probably only eat a bit. To balance things out, I also fixed homemade salsa using a copycat recipe for Chili's Salsa.

Copycat Chili's Salsa

1- 14 oz can of tomatoes and green chiles
1- 14 oz can of whole tomatoes 4t jalapenos (I used canned)
1/4 c onion 1/2 t garlic salt (I used garlic powder)
1/2 t cumin
Put in blender until desired consistency. (I made mine a little runny, just like Chili's.) Transfer to bowl and chill. Serve with tortilla chips. It tastes better after it's a few hours old and all of the flavors have time to blend.

On a completely different note, today also happens to be six year anniversary of the day that we saw Maggie on the ultrasound screen for the first time! After years of ultrasounds and visits to my gynecologists and midwives it was so exciting to see a baby on the screen! It also came after a couple of days of "unexplained" bleeding. Of course, we found out at Maggie's birth that this could have been an early symptom of our vasa previa. It really does only take a moment to diagnose life. I was sure that I had miscarried, so seeing and hearing her little heartbeat was even more amazing.

Another Whirlwind Week!

I feel like I've made it through another whirlwind week and I'm already looking at a busy calendar for the week that's about to start!!

I have had so many things that I wanted to take the time to blog about. This blog is a scrapbook of our daily lives and lots of things happen that I don't want to forget. Unfortunately, my free time seems to get less and less and homeschooling takes up so many of my thoughts. I plan to post a few things about homeschooling later. There are things that we're doing that I'd like to document for when the girls are older.

Big Daddy will be out of town all of next week. We'll have dance class, registration for homeschool electives, a teacher's meeting for our new Awana year at church and a field trip with our homeschool group on Friday. Thursday will be our only real free day and I think we'll spend it hanging out at home. There are times where I feel busier as a stay at home homeschooling mom of two than I felt on my busiest day in real estate.

I was finally able to finalize our Disney World reservations! Maggie woke up with a fever at 1am on Friday morning, threw up in her bed as soon as she woke up at 7am and spent the rest of the day on the couch. I used naptime to finish up our travel details with the travel agent (Small World Vacations- Annette F.) I cannot recommend them enough! I had already planned out exactly what we wanted, so we were able to do everything by email until time for payment. I feel so relieved...and excited.

Sunady is a special day. We had planned to attend Maggie's Graduation Luncheon at church, but it looks like she'll be staying at home and missing it. She's already asked if we could have a special luncheon at home. She will be leaving the preschool department and going to classes in a different building with all school-aged children. We feel so blessed that we go to this church and that she's had such a positive experience with everything involved in the Preschool Ministry.

Ellie will also changing classes. She will be going to a big girl class and will have the same teachers that she had for Bible School- Mr. Danny and Ms. Virginia. I know that she'll be okay because she talks about them all the time and everyone just thrives in their class. I'll really miss her sweet teachersMs. Alice and Ms. Denise.

The Last Hurrah

Today is the last day of summer vacation for lots of kids in our area. School starts back tomorrow and the days have gotten so much shorter lately. After I became a stay at home mom I really started to enjoy the change of seasons with fall being my new favorite.

We decided to take Callie to the zoo today in celebration of school starting tomorrow. The parking lot had lots of empty spots and the animals were all out where we could see them. Since school is about to start there were also no school or daycare groups there, so even the picnic tables were empty. We had a great time and we're going to miss being able to spend mornings with Callie.

Our next "field trip" will be in a couple of weeks. We'll be going to an apple orchard with our homeschool group. We also have enrollment for elective classes where Maggie will be taking sign language. Then there's a field trip with the homeschool families from church.

We are so busy, but we are having so much fun. Living and learning together really is going great.

And then the internet died...a catch up post

So...we went out of town last weekend and came home on Sunday to find out that our internet had unexpectedly passed away. After talking to a few people over the phone throughout the day on Monday, a technician came out and reset something around 7 pm. That was the same time that Maggie had her first dance class. She loved it and Ellie cried (and I cried a little too) because she wanted to take dance lessons too. I tried to explain that money doesn't grow on trees and Ellie would have to wait another year because I am NOT paying for her to take tumbling classes. I immediately had a flash back to Maggie starting Kindermusik classes when she was 17 months old and then starting Gymnastics classes 8 months later. I reminded myself that was when we had one child, a few less monthly expenses and the economy was better. I took Maggie to buy her ballet and tap shoes and Ellie wanted tap shoes too. I told her to get a job. I took the girls shopping to buy them matching tutus (black) and all was well again.

Our new first grade homeschool supplies arrived yesterday. I'm excited about starting first grade math, geography and spelling. We have been doing a first grade writing curriculum for 7 weeks. I am still completely confident in our decision to homeschool and still overwhelmingly amazed at the stupidity, ignorance and rudeness of some people where homeschooling is concerned. We joined a Christian homeschool group and will also be participating in the homeschool group at our church. Maggie will also be taking an elective class this fall and she chose sign language.

Maggie left yesterday evening to go camping with my sister. She was all excited about spending the night with Callie and of course, Ellie said, "I come Fee's (she calls my sister Fee) house. I sleep Callie" a thousand times.

Ellie started running a fever shortly after we put her to bed last night. I'm hanging out with her (alone) today. She asked to "go to Daddy's house" so we are in the bonus room playing. She's playing a combination of dollhouse, cooking and grocery shopping.

And now I'm going to finish working on our Disney World vacation.

Intentions

I had every intention of blogging all about our little weekend family trip, but we had no internet on Sunday evening. It was finally fixed around 7:30 yesterday evening. Needless to say, since then I have had very little free time. Maggie had her first dance class last night and LOVED it!

We spent the morning shopping for tap and ballet shoes and went to one grocery store. We were home just in time for lunch and then went "shopping" for fall clothes in the attic. Ellie is about to go down for her nap and then I'll be homeschooling Maggie and folding four loads of laundry. After nap we need to go to the library and make our second grocery store run for the day. There's a large pile of clothing (hand me downs for Maggie from Callie and for Ellie from Maggie) on my desk that needs to be sorted and put away for fall. Then it will be time to cook dinner, eat, wash dishes and then go to Nana's house for outside play time. The temperatures here are cooler (especially in the evening) this week so we are trying to enjoy it.


Until next time...

Few Words Wednesday

We have painted our fingernails and toenails with markers (more than once) joined a homeschool group, played a whole bunch , signed Maggie up for ballet/tap and jazz dance classes, shopped for groceries, mowed the yard and started packing for our family weekend getaway!

I hope to have time words tomorrow, but life is so busy these days!!

This Week

This week has been amazing! We have been super busy, but in the best kind of way!

• Monday- For my birthday, Big Daddy took the girls out and they came back with breakfast. We spent a little time together as a family before Big Daddy left for his business trip. Maggie and Ellie watched a 30 minute DVD while I cleaned the hardwood floors and did lots of housework. To end my birthday-day, we went to my parents' house for play time...after a trip to the grocery store. Happy Birthday to me...not really. Both girls had rough days=Mommy had a rough day too. I shared my birthday with my grandmother who passed away in October. This was the first time I'd ever had a birthday all to myself. I only cried once.
  
• Tuesday- We met other preschoolers from our church at a local children's museum. Maggie and Ellie had the best time! I think the regular admission is ridiculous, so I'm not sure we'll be going back. We got a great deal for a group rate, so it was a fair price for 4 hours of air conditioned fun. Their favorite things were the grocery store, the hospital/baby nursery, Nonie's House, the t.v. studio and a pretend train.
• Wednesday- We met two of my best friends from high school and their two kids for lunch. She homeschools and he's a college professor. We had great conversation and even though our kids aren't the same age (their kids are 10 and 8) everybody had a great time. After lunch, they came back to our house for dessert. I LOVED spending time with them.
• Thursday- Today was like my birthday gift!!!!! We went to Sanford to visit our friends! We started out by driving across town (checked out some of the tornado damage and were able to see the new Lowes that is replacing the one that was destroyed in April) to see what had changed. We went to my old office to visit and catch up in all of the local real estate happenings. After that, we met my Mommy friends and their kids at a local church playground and then went to eat lunch. (Of course, I forgot my camera, had to use my phone and the subjects would not be still!!!)The Original Lunch Bunch!! Ellie and Baby T were hanging on the other side of the table.
  

We had to wait a loooong time for our food, but the kids behaved well. When you have a part of eight and five of those are kids you just don't want to wait 50 minutes for your food. It was one of the little boys' birthdays and we celebrated my birthday too. We had a great free dessert and I got some sweet gifts too. We ended our trip "home" by visiting "Gammy Gladys". I feel so fortunate that I met Gladys when we started selling real estate on the same day. My favorite part of selling real estate was going to look at houses with her!! I would never have guessed that she would have become the adopted grandmother to my children!Ms. A had forgotten a gift, so I stopped by her house to pick it up after we had spent two hours of pure JOY with Gammy Gladys!. She wasn't at home and had left it for me with a sweet note about driving safe and how she loved me and missed me already. I only cried once during my hour long car ride home.

• Friday- We plan to catch up on the homeschool work that we haven't finished, clean a little and rest a whole lot! Maggie is also attending Vacation Bible School at the church where my grandparents were members and where my grandmother attended before she passed away. Big Daddy will arrive home late in the evening and then we'll have a busy weekend! More on that later!!